MONUMENT TO ELIZABETH STIFF AND OTHERS, WEST ENCLOSURE

MONUMENT TO ELIZABETH STIFF AND OTHERS, WEST ENCLOSURE, BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1396530
Date first listed:: 21-Feb-2011
List Entry Name:: MONUMENT TO ELIZABETH STIFF AND OTHERS, WEST ENCLOSURE
Statutory Address:: MONUMENT TO ELIZABETH STIFF AND OTHERS, WEST ENCLOSURE, BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1396530
Date first listed:: 21-Feb-2011
List Entry Name:: MONUMENT TO ELIZABETH STIFF AND OTHERS, WEST ENCLOSURE
Statutory Address 1:: MONUMENT TO ELIZABETH STIFF AND OTHERS, WEST ENCLOSURE, BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: MONUMENT TO ELIZABETH STIFF AND OTHERS, WEST ENCLOSURE, BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Greater London Authority
District:: Islington (London Borough)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ 32633 82256

Details

635-1/0/10230 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND 21-FEB-11 Monument to Elizabeth Stiff and others , West enclosure

GV II Headstone, mid C18

LOCATION: 532632.6, 182256.3

MATERIALS: Portland stone

DESCRIPTION: The monument is an upright slab having a scrolled and shaped top with a worn relief carving apparently depicting two amorini (winged cherubs' heads), an hourglass and a coffin lid. The inscription gives a number of names including those of Elizabeth wife of Peter Clugh of the parish of St Botolph Aldersgate (d.1748?) and Elizabeth wife of Thomas Stiff (d.1777). A warning is appended below: 'Reader be thou also ready.'

HISTORY: Bunhill Fields was first enclosed as a burial ground in 1665. Thanks to its location just outside the City boundary, and its independence from any Established place of worship, it became London's principal Nonconformist cemetery, the burial place of John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, William Blake and other leading religious and intellectual figures. It was closed for burials in 1853, laid out as a public park in 1867, and re-landscaped following war damage by Bridgewater and Shepheard in 1964-5.

SOURCES: Corporation of London, A History of the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (1902). A W Light, Bunhill Fields (London, 1915).

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The monument to Elizabeth Stiff is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is a richly-carved Baroque headstone whose admonitory inscription, still clearly legible, attests to contemporary attitudes to mortality. * It is located within the Grade I registered Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (q.v.), and has group value with the other listed tombs in the west enclosure.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 508570
Legacy System:: LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.